I think most of us who were contributors were just relieved that the matter was settled. ReelRadio, like David's World Radio History, is all about preservation. We have already lost too much over the years from the discarding of collectors' personal archives after their death when their families didn't know what to do with them (and, from their perspective, probably a lot of "who cares about this stuff").
That is a very real concern. In the past year (ish), we have seen the deaths of two major collectors, Dave Klayman and Bill Earl.
Fortunately Dave and Bill had discussed with their survivors how they wanted their collections to be handled, and they specified sharing with other major collectors, to increase the circulation of the airchecks.
Aaron Mintz (still with us) had a legendary collection, but decided to give up the hobby a decade or so ago and donated his complete archive to Emerson College. That sounds good, but the college makes it available only for on-site listening for researchers, with no borrowing or duplication allowed. Which means the vast majority of it will never be heard again.
Other major collectors of advancing age (70+), trying to get ahead of that issue for their loved ones, are finding that it is very much a niche interest with very few people willing to spend cash to obtain a collection (even just to cover shipping), no matter how complete, well-recorded or well-preserved. There's a very real risk of that stuff just getting tossed.
Some have tried getting their collection out into the public by posting online, but that's tricky. YouTube routinely blocks airchecks on copyright grounds and deletes accounts after a given number of infractions. MixCloud used to allow unscoped airchecks, but a couple of years ago made that conditional on having a very pricey Premium account.
The last refuge appeared to be the Internet Archive, but recent DOS attacks and a couple of court losses in book copyright cases make that less than a sure thing.
I'm not an aircheck collector by any means, but I believe the exhibits I contributed are ones that belong. (And that Jimi Fox aircheck at B100 San Diego, that I recorded in 1975 on a portable AM/FM/cassette machine, was for years the only known aircheck of that station. Sadly, some unscrupulous types lifted it from ReelRadio and sold copies of it, so it is now widespread; it was much more special when you had to come to the site to hear it.)
That was Richard's opposition to downloads and copying: There's no reason to return to REELRADIO once you have it. It's why you can't just pick up a convincing copy of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre gift shop and hang it on the wall at home.
Richard viewed REELRADIO as a museum, one you had to visit. In a conversation with one of the (now former) board members, I mentioned that Richard would be happy that the North Carolina Broadcast History Museum and its President, Carl Davis, a friend of Richard's, would inherit REELRADIO, but that he'd be way less happy about the downloading.
My friend pointed out that the horses left the barn years ago---there's very little that's not already in circulation. Survival of what's there outweighs the copiers, traders and sellers.
Hopefully the North Carolina Broadcast History Museum will be rewarded for its saving REELRADIO by people who will visit and listen often on the site.
